We as a community should consider the environmental impact of our gaming rigs!

Community General Discussion
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I was having shower thoughts about my computer build and energy consumption the other day.

as for a car I drive a boat. I have felt guilty about it for a while only 22 mpg. But i rarely have to drive especially since covid. I was on my old gaming laptop while traveling and felt how hot it was getting just running wow at 30 fps. and I got to thinking: man I wonder what the carbon footprint is on my machine. its only a 1060 but it gets hot. (i know laptops run inefficiently hot)

and then I honestly started to question whether my car was the real problem or if I’m actually leaving a bigger carbon footprint on my gaming rig.

check out the thermal camera on this double 3090 SLI rig. https://youtu.be/i1dGQiNfCAc?t=689

it really got me thinking about the morality of high end PC gaming.

52 inch 4k screens, double 3090’s graphics cards, 2000 watt power supplies etc.

what kind of carbon footprint does high end gaming leave? for 5 hours every day? how does it compare to driving car?

personally i can’t really tell a big difference between 60 and 100 fps. especially higher than 100. when I run at 200 i just kind of shrug and whatever.

wow on graphics 10? can’t tell any difference from level 7.

it really makes me wonder how big of an environmental impact we are having for so little gains in video clarity. can you tell the difference between 4k and 8k? really? or do you need binoculars and to squint really hard do see where the pixels match up?

some prebuild machines have eco friendly settings or approval. I discovered my 144hz monitor has eco friendly mode. yes the screen is dimmer but this is actually easier on your eyes!!!

before buying that second 3090 for one machine consider is 1 enough already.

consider undervolting. consider power consumption options on windows and in the nvidia control panel.

research where your house draws power from. Is it solar, nuclear, coal?

my home doesn’t have solar but i’d be curious how many panels on a home it takes to support high end gaming carbon free. some states offer big tax incentives to install solar. something to think about for you power heavy gamers!

Am I trolling? is it satire? am i making a serious political statement? did i watch too much captain plant as a kid? is this a cleverly disguised slam on the new 3090? nobody knows because HAPPY SUNDAY!!!

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I think while it is good you are thinking about your own carbon footprint, you are only going to gain traction and buy in from the masses when the process for conscious reduction is made easy for them up front at point of purchase.

Also, it needs to be TL:DR for people, otherwise they switch off.

Want people to reduce carbon footprint? Plant trees.

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We have a dam, like beavers but not.

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Felweed trees to be specific. :leafy_green:

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I can see you’re an african-american blood elf.

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An awesome way to begin a thread.

Wanna help the environment?

*Support companies that are attempting to lower their carbon footprint.

*Stay away from beef, and meat in general.

*Go solar

etc…

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I like how you’re trying to min/max your already meaningless carbon footprint when most of the pollution comes from massive businesses anyways.

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Sounds like you were wasting water.

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Don’t know, and don’t really care. drives to work in his gas guzzling v8

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I did some fiddling with the EPA’s carbon footprint calculator for you.

I put in some moderate driving stats: 10 miles of driving per day.

If you replaced your 22 mpg car with a 45 mpg car, you’d save 2,600 pounds of carbon emissions per year.

Conversely, a more energy efficient computer would save you 66 pounds of carbon emissions per year.

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What probably isn’t factored into this is the emissions of the entire supply chain needed to build the new car or new computer. Let’s say our 22 mpg car is a 1990 Honda Accord. The average length of ownership for vehicles is a surprisingly long 79.3 months. If we had replaced our vehicle every 79.3 months rather than keeping the Accord, we’d have purchased about 4.5 cars. Think of all the energy and materials that 4.5 cars represents.

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Just make sure that your computer:

  1. Doesn’t have processes constantly keeping the CPU and/or GPU engaged when you’re using it for less demanding things (e.g. web surfing). Both CPUs and GPUs are designed to throttle themselves to reduce power consumption to very low levels when not being used heavily.
    1a. As part of this, use uBlock Origin with your browser to cut out the gigatons of unnecessary ad Javascript found on most sites and vastly reduce the CPU footprint of web browsing.

  2. Is set up to sleep/hibernate after a certain period, and no programs are stopping your computer from sleeping.

  3. Uses a PSU that isn’t cheap crap and fits your actual power consumption pretty well — e.g. if your CPU and GPU require a total of ~450W, opt for a high quality 80+ 650-750W PSU instead of a cheaper PSU that claims it’s rated for 1000W or something ridiculous. Cheap PSUs are far less efficient, especially when it comes to idle states, and frequently are incapable of delivering the advertised load.

If you do these things, your computer will only require significant power when you’re actively gaming, reducing overall footprint to negligible levels (~15-30W while idle or almost-idle, <1W while sleeping).

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Sure. But the point is: When it IS time for a new car, get an efficient one. :smiley:

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It’s probably still running compared and running better compared to some new cars.

Honda and Toyota those things run forever.

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Climate change doesn’t even exist so all of this talk of energy conservation is pointless.

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I’ll stick with my 22mpg combined 2009 Highlander .

I only fill up every 2-3 weeks

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You know, I‘ve always wondered, how environmental friendly is that battery for electrical cars, the manufacturing process of the battery, and where I got the electricity to charge the battery :face_with_monocle:

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That’s why long term it’s not just the cars, but the whole energy supply chain that needs to go electric/renewable. Fossil fuels really need to exit entirely as something we burn (what a waste), and only remain for long term use polymers (those we use for electronics and medicine), not just ones we trash after a Happy Meal.

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I think I’m going to make a coal powered gaming rig now. Anyone else interested?

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You’re thinking too eco friendly. You should build a rig that only runs on burning fresh wood. Just want to watch some youtube videos? Better find a shrubbery. Ready for some heavy gaming (at max settings and uncapped fps of course)? Better chop down a couple trees for each hour you plan to play.